DNIPROPETROVSK – The eastern industrial city of Dnipropetrovsk, home to an array of political stars and once the leader in making Soviet missiles, is distinguishing itself again.
Today, the city of 1 million people is getting attention as the place for revival of the Jewish community, led by billionaires Hennadiy Boholiubov and Igor Kolomoisky.
Last month, the multimillion-dollar Menorah, touted as the world’s largest Jewish community center, opened its doors. The massive, 22-story complex dwarfs the city center. It has a total area of 50,000 square meters and seven towers, corresponding to the seven-branch Jewish lampstand and an emblem of Israel.
The project aims to serve the “spiritual, cultural and business” needs of the local and wider Jewish community while welcoming people from other backgrounds and beliefs. The center wants to be a social hub. It has vast space for hosting conferences. It is also home to a museum of Jewish heritage and the Holocaust.
The official opening came on Oct. 21 in the presence of dignitaries from Ukraine and Israel.
But the inside of the center is still eerily empty. Cleaning ladies mop the floor as security guards look on. Everything is elegant and austere. Creamy walls blend marble and so-called Jerusalem stone, similar to that on the Wailing Wall in Israel. Imaginatively, they incorporate the facades of 12 local buildings that were significant for the Jewish community.
In the future, the ground floor arcade will host small stores, banks, and even a branch of the Coffee Time chain. The building rises up from the city’s main synagogue, the Golden Rose, which dates to the 19th century, when Dnipropetrovsk was called Yekaterinoslav.
Today, the synagogue houses an unusual ATM. Rather than withdrawing money, visitors can use it to donate money to charitable Jewish causes, either by inserting cash or via an electronic transfer from their bank account.
An ominous black staircase leads up to the museum, in symbolic contrast to the center’s light interior. It starts by illustrating Jewish life using objects and colorful collages. It then moves on to the Holocaust, looking at concentration camps and mass shootings, with a reconstructed ravine like the one in Kyiv’s Babyn Yar, where the Nazis shot almost 34,000 Jews and others.
Each object tells a story. The guide points out a doll, blonde-haired and blue-eyed, which belonged to a little Jewish girl. “Look after her until I come back,” she told neighbors as she left the apartment with her mother. She never returned and the neighbors kept the doll for several decades. In a lack of foresight, the exhibits are only labeled in Ukrainian, although a tour in English is available on request.
There is also a hotel offering full Shabbat services. Rooms start at around Hr 1,000. A youth hostel also offers beds for Hr 100. At the top of the scale (and building), a single luxury suite offers a panoramic view. “Maybe the president of Israel will visit one day,” a chambermaid giggles.
The center’s kosher restaurant is yet to open. But the synagogue’s cafe offers an Israeli-style lunch of pita, homemade humus and salads. A waitress, asked what she thinks about the center, replied: “The Jews here, they’re good people. They seem to stick up for one another.”
Today, Dnipropetrovsk is home to an estimated 50,000-70,000 Jews, although the official count is much lower – at 12,000 people. Up to 80,000 Jews left the city for Israel. But many came back. Some members of the Jewish community in Dnipropetrovsk have Israeli passports.
Anti-Semitism, apart from rare acts of vandalism on Jewish cemeteries or monuments, is not a big problem, some local members say.
The Menorah is a dramatic step in the gradual Jewish revival in Dnipropetrovsk.
Today, the local Jewish community sees itself as a beacon in Ukraine and beyond, boasting a range of organizations, both religious and secular – from the synagogue (which draws around 500 people for Saturday service and 2,000 on holidays) to the Jewish school, and from newspapers to charitable institutions.
“It is a magnificent container, but it’s what’s inside that matters,” Oleg Rostovtsev, a spokesman for the Dnipropetrovsk Jewish community, said of the center.
Money for the construction came from Boholiubov and Kolomoisky, who control the Privat Group and have combined net worth of $5.8 billion, according to recent rankings. Both are international Jewish community leaders. Their project may end up bringing more fame to a region that produced such Soviet and Ukrainian political leaders as the late Leonid Brezhnev and, more recently Leonid Kuchma, the former Ukrainian president who once ran the Yuzhmash missile factory in Dnipropetrovsk, and former prime ministers Pavlo Lazarenko and Yulia Tymoshenko.
Menorah’s press service shies away from discussing the massive cost of the project, while Israeli media have estimated the cost at $60 million.
A tragic and sinister event marred Menorah’s inaugural year. The man credited with the idea for building the center, local Jewish businessman Hennadiy Axelrod, was shot dead in a bicycle drive-by in April. His murder remains unsolved. Inside the center’s entrance, a discreet plaque commemorates him.
People keen to learn more about Ukraine’s Jewish heritage, past and present will find the Menorah center is worth the overnight train journey from Kyiv to Dnipropetrovsk. It is also drawing international praise. The Jerusalem Post has already called it “one of the seven wonders of the Jewish world,” even though Menorah won’t be completely finished until spring.
Kyiv Post staff writer Annabelle Chapman can be reached at [email protected].
